Fairy godmother to the new debs

26 November 2004

Ophélie Renouard tells Rory Ross how she turns the teenage darlings of Bush, Gorbachev and Berlusconi into haute couture models for a night

It has been trumpeted as the grandest "coming-out" ball on Earth. Today, a decorative, multilingual group of 23 teenage girls, selected for their looks, charm and famous parents - or, failing that, unpronounceable surnames - fly to Paris and check into the gilded Hôtel de Crillon.

Trading fashionably frayed jeans, trainers and fruit-scented lip gloss for heels, tiaras and haute couture gowns worth up to £30,000 each, they undergo a semi-Cinderella transformation ("semi" because most of these girls already have a head-and-shoulders start on Cinderella). After a photo shoot and fashion show, they pair off with eligible young escorts and waltz around in front of an audience of proud parents and a posse of polite press.

That this bizarre fairy-tale rite survives is down to the charm and gentle persistence of the ball's fairy godmother, Ophélie Renouard, a worldly French PR who lives in Paris and London. But even she seems baffled by the ball's success.

"I cannot understand it," she says. "Perhaps it is the model thing. The girls come from very privileged backgrounds, yet none of them has ever been to a haute couture house. We treat them like models - we try to find the best dresses, hairdressers and make-up artistes. We want them to look beautiful. They love it."

Renouard tries to skirt the word "debutante", as it "gives the wrong impression" to fashion-conscious English girls contemptuous of "coming out" in the traditional way, as their grandmothers did. Instead, Renouard calls them "new debs".

"It has nothing to do with the old understanding of 'debutante', the social thing, which [despite being a French word] has no meaning to the French," she says. "It is totally different. The title of the event is the Paris Haute Couture Ball or New Debs Ball. And I am the inventor of it."

Saturday's ball is the culmination of years of work. Renouard scours the society pages and plies contacts on every continent for new girls on the cusp of late teenhood, applying the genealogical acuity of a bloodstock agent combined with a dash of private detective. She writes to the parents, suggesting that it might be fun if their daughters took part - nothing flashy, except a few cameras, and no mention of prospective husbands. Then follow months of discussions, fittings and photo shoots that capture the passage of each new deb, before the final accouchement in Paris.

"The main criterion for a girl is that she can squeeze into a sample couture ball gown," says Renouard. "The girls must also come from families of renown and have nice personalities. There is an attitude that we like. The girls stay three-to-a-room in the Crillon. If they say they don't want to, we say 'Non'."

Besides trains getting trodden on and couture gowns getting ripped, much of the drama of the ball - the tantrums and the egos - takes place behind the scenes. Renouard's biggest headache is the occasional pushy parent, bulldozing her (it is usually a her) way through the backstage arrangements, influencing the choice of dress, interfering with the fashion shoot, tinkering with the seating arrangements and kicking up a fuss when the press ignores her daughter. Renouard's time studying psychology at the Sorbonne wasn't wasted. She can spot the pushy parent-on-a- mission a kilometre off. Tell-tale signs include label snobbery and a tendency to finish off their daughters' sentences.

"Most of the parents are amused, proud and mesmerised by the transformation of their daughters," says Renouard. "But because the majority of them are so-called important people, we have a few parents on the outside who are, you might say, less important, who feel insecure and try to break in. In the end, they fail." This year, only 23 girls are taking part instead of the usual 24 because Renouard had to drop one of the girls after there were differences of opinion with her father.

Each girl wears a dress by a different designer, the most coveted being Chanel, Lacroix and Dior. In 2000, a row broke out when Lady Isabella Hervey was refused Dior in favour of Lauren Bush, George W Bush's niece. Lady Isabella's mother, the Marchioness of Bristol, a long-standing Dior client, had other ideas. Calm was restored when Lady Isabella was offered John Galliano, who ironically was, and still is, head designer at Dior. "Now the marchioness and I are best friends," says Renouard with a diplomatic smile.

At least Anna Wintour, whose daughter Bea will wear Chanel, knows a thing or two about fashion. "I have never met anyone like her," says Renouard, eyes wide open. "She won't take 'No' for an answer. I just say 'Yes' to everything. She is controlling the press for her daughter. She knows better than me how to do it, so I just leave it to her. My concern is for the girls to have fun."

The ball began as a very simple affair one Sunday afternoon in 1991, loosely modelled on the Berkeley Dress Show, the last vestige of the debutante tradition in Britain where young ladies from smart families were presented at court before being launched into high society. "There was a fashion show and a cocktail party," says Renouard. "It was low-key except for the gowns. But the girls were very good, all French except Alison Grade, daughter of Michael Grade. The French fathers couldn't take their eyes off Alison's mother."

Ever since Mikimoto, the pearl company, became sponsors in 1996, the event has flourished, with research into Aids and cancer benefiting from the evening. When Lauren Bush stole the show in 2000, and went on to a successful modelling career, the ball became known around the world. "That was the first time we had someone with a world-famous name," says Renouard. This triggered a trend. In 2001, Xenia Gorbacheva, Mikhail's granddaughter, took part, followed by Barbara Berlusconi, Silvio's daughter, in 2002.

"I am still surprised that the Bushes, Berlusconis and Gorbachevs took part," says Renouard. "I simply wrote to them asking if they'd like their daughters to come to the ball. They said, 'Yes'."

Ball fever is spreading east. Last year, three Chinese girls were at the Crillon, including Bao Bao Wan, granddaughter of Wan Li, former chairman of the Chinese National People's Congress and executive vice-premier of China, and Penelope Pei-Tang, niece of the architect IM Pei. "I feel very much at home with the Chinese," says Saigon-born Renouard. "They are very abrupt, like the French."

Meanwhile, parents are thrusting their daughters forward from as far away as Japan, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil and Egypt, as well as every country in Europe. Only Hollywood has so far eluded Renouard.

"Too spoilt," she says, briskly. "We would like showbiz, but nice, educated showbiz. We asked one of the Hollywood people, but he demanded five first-class tickets and five rooms at the Crillon. He could afford them himself. If I had to pay for a trip, I'd rather pay for someone who cannot afford it."